The Times of Israel reports: Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday accused a vocal minority of Israelis of attacking their country’s “basic values,” adding that Israel’s “moral compass” had been lost, in his first public comments since it emerged that his position had been offered to Avigdor Liberman.

“Our moral compass for basic questions has been lost,” Ya’alon said during a meeting with the heads of Israel’s youth movements at the army’s Tel Aviv headquarters.

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Ya’alon did not refer to Liberman or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, nor did he refer specifically to the bombshell decision to oust him from the Defense Ministry. However, the meaning of his speech was entirely clear.

The defense minister admitted that he wasn’t surprised by the recent turn of events or by the intense criticism he’s received from those, he said, who “in full volume attack our basic values.”